Need Advice: Healing Addons

Hi everybody,

I'm very new to healing, and I wanted some advice on what UI addons I should be using for raid healing...

I was using Grid/Clique, but I was having alot of problems with Clique (spells not binding, spells that were bound not showing up in the addon's interface, or the interface being completely blank). I was told a good alternative to to Grid/Clique is Healbot, but I dont like the UI when in a raid, and the fact that I can only heal with my mouse from within the healbot window. I really like grid, but I'm not sure how to set it up to use without clique, is there an alternative to clique? ahhh headache

Vuhdo is pretty nice, but I feel like the setup is somewhat confusing the first time you use it. I, myself, use Grid/Clique without any problems. Since the day I downloaded WoW, in fact! Check your frame blacklist (under the Options button in lower right corner of the Clique tab). Mine is edited so Clique only works with Grid.

There are other supplementary addons to Grid, as well. This one is the most important.
1. GridStatus Raid Debuff

You can search 'GridStatus' on the Curse website and find tons of useful status alerts for Grid. Many of them are fight- or mechanic-specific.

As for other addons:
1. ForteXorcist (cooldowns)
2. PowerAuras (everyone should have this!)

...And that's it for me. I recently modified my UI and don't even use Forte anymore due to the way my action bars are set up.

I mainly use PowerAuras for debuffs. I think most healers slowly tunnel vision on their Grid throughout the fight. PowerAuras alerts me when I need to move or dispel things and brings me out of that.

No offense but if you are looking for a workable out of the box raid frame then Vuhdo is definitely something you should look into.

Yes, setting up the details can take some time, but many of the standard things are either already set up or very easy to set up yourself. Most of the buffs and debuffs are already set ( including very boss specific ones that you'd otherwise have to set up manually) , you have the aoe heal cluster finder that is really useful if you are looking to see how many people PoH or CoH are going to hit and so on.

I do not know if Healbot or Grid allow this, but you can bind keys as well to your Vuhdo to use along with mouse bound spells. Another plus are things like automatic triggering of instant spells and trinkets( wonderful with IF for example), arrow indicators for out of range people ( so you know which way to run towards them), ability to bind macros rather than spells to mouse buttons easily, ress announcements and so on.In addition it has a great system to track stuff like DA duration, if a target is "swiftmendable" for druids and so forth. I wholeheartedly recommend VuhDo if click/Grid didn't cut it for you (like it never did for me).

There are numerous guides both on youtube and written that you can look up if you want a more advanced setup. ( I personally have blackbars with a lighter background).
Other addons I cannot live without are:

Power Auras - I use this to track almost everything: power torrent proccs, t12 2 set bonus uptime,stacks and duration on evangelism, mana tide buff, hymn of hope etc.

Doom Cooldown Pulse - I like this better than other cooldown trackers because I find it less intrusive. When a spell's CD is ready, the spell icon will flash on your screen. You can set up the size, visibility, lingering etc. of the icon.

Ingela's Rapture- if you are too lazy to set up power auras to do this for you like I am, just get this addon to track your rapture icd and pop a message on your screen for when you should shield.

Raeli's Spell Allert - I use this in raids to let other healers/ the raid know when I am casting specific spells ( my tanks love it because is whispers them for example when I cast PS/GS on them and whispers again when the spell wears off). It whispers people when you use leap of faith on them ( helps avoid running around in fire like headless chickens after the pull), announces when I put down my lightwell, when I cash HoH or DH or when I put down my barrier. You can set up what spells it announces and what channels it will announce to : say/yell/raid/whisper target/custom channel/party etc.

Grid + Mouseover Macros, Rapture CD bar (forgot the name) and PowerAura's without these i wouldnt be as effective.
I could live without bartender, skada/recount, omen and all that other stuff.

My binds are memorized and bound to 6 mouse buttons and to numbers 1 to 6.
All together with a Shift for a total of 24 buttons. Skada well i still have it but its set to damage and one extra skada window is set to Aggro.

Why i love grid, its not as huge as vudho and healbot. I have small healthbars, showing stuff to dispell showing who has low mana (friendly healer so i can use Hymn of Hope if needed).

Shame the Absorb addon for grid doesnt work anymore, it gave a bright green 2 pixel width frame around the target on grid have to look up for the name tho.

Still looking for something to replace so i can get rif of the Icon in grid.

I use Vuhdo as well, it's your best match to Grid/Clique type of functionality and it requires less messing around with the options than Grid.
Vuhdo configuration does have its share of quirks, but as mentioned there are youtube clips available that walk you through how the config menus work.

as positives:
it has never crashed for me, it worked fine when i dcd and logged back mid fight.
you dont need any external addons to it (as raid frames)
it offers an amazing choice of options to set it, so you can personalize it as much as you like, feels like there are no limits
offers two profiles for binding spells, useful if you switch between holy and discipline specs

as negatives i heard only about one, it might seem difficult to set at first, but there are so many tutorials online (even on youtube) and theres some vuhdo wiki, which help a lot to set anything you like to set there.
personally i didnt find personalizing vuhdo difficult, quite opposite, it seemed far more intuitive for me than grid+corresponding addons

There are many kinds of party/raid frames such as grid, pitbull etc, Vuhdo is something else taking the best of healer addons such as clique and hot/debuff tracking into one complete addon, while it is not a requirement it certainly is an amazing tool that is worth looking at.

It can be a bit crazy to setup and intimidating as it has alot of configuration there are many good guides to look at, if you thinking about using it or even just to see what it is like take a look at this article and the vids.